BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion and iPhone-maker Apple have joined eight other mobile phone makers in agreeing to make their cellphone chargers compatible with one another in Europe.

The European Union has been pushing for a single, standard charger to cut the costs of manufacturers and reduce the number of chargers that are thrown away because of compatibility issues.

"I am very pleased that industry has found an agreement, which will make life much simpler for consumers," said EU vice-president Günter Verheugen. "They will be able to charge mobile phones anywhere from the new common charger. This also means considerably less electronic waste, because people will no longer have to throw away chargers when buying new phones."

The EU had asked the industry to come up with a solution to avoid the need for legislation to enforce the policy.

The first generation of inter-chargeable phones should reach the European market in 2010.

The mobile phone industry has already been moving toward a single standard for mobile phone chargers based on a Micro-USB interface and with a specific energy-efficiency standard for no-load power consumption — the power consumed by the charger when the phone has finished charging, but the charger remains plugged in.

But those global standards, agreed upon earlier this year at an international meeting of mobile phone industry representatives in Barcelona, didn't have the same broad support as the new European agreement and wouldn't have taken effect until 2012. As a result, the European agreement may spur quicker adoption of a global standard.

Major handset manufacturers Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Qualcomm, Sony Ericsson and LG have signed on to both agreements. New to the European agreement are RIM, Apple, NEC and Texas Instruments.